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In a significant development for space exploration, four astronauts from the SpaceX Crew-10 mission successfully joined the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday. The crew, comprising NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, docked with the station as part of SpaceX’s tenth rotation under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

“NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, as the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the orbiting complex at 12:04 a.m. EDT, while the station was roughly 260 statute miles over the Atlantic Ocean.”

Following the successful docking at the Harmony module’s forward-facing port, crews began standard safety procedures, including leak checks and pressurization, before the scheduled hatch opening at approximately 1:45 a.m. Sunday.

The new arrivals will join the existing Expedition 72 team, which includes NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Don Petitt, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Aleksandr Gorbunov, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner. The station’s crew complement will temporarily increase to 11 members until the departure of Crew-9.

This mission is particularly significant as it enables the return of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stationed on the ISS since June 2024 due to complications with their original return vehicle. What was initially planned as an eight-day mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner turned into a nine-month stay for these astronauts.

During a recent virtual press conference, Wilmore addressed questions about Elon Musk’s statement regarding Joe Biden’s alleged rejection of a SpaceX return flight offer. Wilmore confirmed, “I can only say that Mr Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual.”

“I can tell you, at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk, and obviously respect and admiration for our President of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them, we appreciate all they do for us, for human spaceflight, for our nation. We’re thankful that they’re in the positions they’re in.

The words they’ve said — politics — I mean, that’s part of life. We understand that, and there’s an important reason why we have a political system, and the political system that we do have.

And we’re behind it 100 percent. We know what we’ve lived up here. We know the ins and outs and the specifics that they may not be privy to.

And I’m sure they have some issues that they’re dealing with, information that they have that we are not privy to.

So when I think about your question, that’s part of life. We are on board with it, we support our nation, we support our nation’s leaders and we’re thankful for them.”